


catfishing no jutsu

by manderly



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Catfishing, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 01:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15919929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manderly/pseuds/manderly
Summary: in which Sakura’s incredibly packed and limiting medical school schedule has left her thirsty enough for friendship that she starts playing a ninja-themed MMOnaturally, accidental catfishing ensues.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

> **(3:00 AM)** **s. haruno:**  i can’t remember what sunlight looks like                                                                                                                                                       
>  sai told me i looked pale today  
>  Sai as in the kid Naruto tried to exorcise because Sasuke said the transfer student was an actual vampire                
>  IS THIS MY LIFE NOW INO is this what I’ve become…
> 
>   
>  **(3:12 AM) i. yamanaka:**  if u keep txting me at 3am, ill end that fkin life 
> 
>   
>  **(3:13 AM) s. haruno:**  :(
> 
>   
>  **(3:14 AM) i.yamanaka:**  :*  
>  wait   
>  did u just get out of a clinical rotation??? go the hell to sleep???
> 
>   
>  **(3:15 AM) s. haruno:**  i literally never have time to myself now, ino   
>  u think I’d waste the little that I DO have on sleep??
> 
>   
>  **(3:16 AM) i. yamanaka:**  :| sakura……. 
> 
>   
>  **(3:17 AM) s. haruno:**  do u wanna come over and watch mamma mia with me 
> 
>   
>  **(3:18 AM) i. yamanaka:**  its 3am dude 
> 
>   
>  **(3:19 AM) s. haruno:**  ino pls the only people i’ve seen for the past two weeks are my classmates.
> 
> oh and sai but that’s only because we live together   
>  I need the kind of love and support only a best friend can supply
> 
>   
>  **(3:22 AM) i. yamanaka:**  i have work 2morro!!!! GOOD NIGHT!!!! >:(!!! 
> 
>   
>  **(3:22 AM) s. haruno:**  ;( </3 </3 

  
Sakura sighed as she set down her phone, betrayed her last friendship lifeline. As a third-year medical student, Sakura and her relationship with the concept of “free time” was complicated, suffice to say. When she was able to pilfer away a few hours of the day to herself, they occurred at incredibly irregular hours, ranging from early mornings, late nights, or sometimes in the afternoon smack-dab during a normal person’s workday. As it was, her perpetually irregular schedule left her with a very narrow range of things that she could actually do with her free time. Despite having a relatively decent number of friends if she did say so herself, she was left stranded and alone. Naruto was notoriously dead to the world after 10 PM on the dot. Sasuke was out of the question as the last time Sakura woke him up in the middle of the night, he reached near impossible levels of rudeness. And Sakura hadn’t built up a large enough stockpile of owed favors with the rest of her friends to justify waking them up in the middle of the night.

“Well,” Sakura muttered. “Guess it’s back to unsolved mystery videos for me.” She settled at her cluttered desk, staring blankly at the plethora of half-empty mugs that were scattered along its surface. If she unfocused her eyes just enough, she could almost make out a face in the murky depths of the mug closest to her. “Sasuke’s manic uncle is the Zodiac Killer,” it seemed to scream at her.

“Oh no! Nope! Not today!” She aggressively shook her head clear, rubbing fiercely at her eyes. “No stress-induced delusions for me today!” Once her mind was sufficiently cleared, she re-opened her eyes, quickly focusing on the main source of illumination in her room, her computer screen.

There, she immediately noticed a bright orange icon that she couldn’t recall seeing previously.

Sakura squinted at it. “World of Ninjacraft?” She muttered, scrunching her eyebrows together in confusion. Wait. Now that she said it out loud, it didn’t sound altogether unfamiliar. She thought about it some more. Oh! It was that game that Naruto had downloaded for her a month ago before when she had been complaining about her forecasted lack of reasonably timed free time. As he had explained at the time, while he had absolutely zero interest at all in hanging out during “the forsaken hours of the day, Sakura-chan”, if she was really that desperate for conversation not involving medicine or Sai, she could try playing this “really cool online game!!”

At the time, Sakura had highly doubted that she would ever reach the levels of friendship thirst that would compel her to start playing online games. But considering she had just hallucinated a talking mug… Sakura clicked the icon.

Despite lacking much gaming experience, Sakura found herself navigating World of Ninjacraft relatively easily. Within the hour, she was logged into the account that Naruto had set up for her and armed with a new ninja alter-ego, Haruhana.

… Man, she truly was where creativity came to die.

Regardless! Haruhana was a kickass medical-nin from Konoha. Lacking much knowledge in skill point allotment, Sakura decided to randomize it and go from there. This resulted in Haruhana having excellent chakra control, intelligence, and strength. However, she also had less-then-optimal constitution and chakra stores, not that Sakura really knew what that meant. As it was, Sakura knew that she had a super cute character with pastel pink hair and bright green eyes, much like her own. The starter outfit of a red qipao dress didn’t exactly show much fashion sense, but she could work around that.

“Ugh, I love her already.” Sakura gushed, taking a quick screenshot of her character to show Ino later. “Alright, time to release my sweet baby into the world.”

She pressed the green Start button. The screen flashed black before showing Haruhana in the midst of a sea of brightly dressed nin-dividuals. The screen was completely covered in text bubbles, “@@@ UNLIMITED FREE RYOU CHEAT @@@”, “HOT KONOHA KUNOICHI LIVECAM – FOLLOW ME @xXxqtkunoichix33Xx”, “

“What.” Sakura blurted out, eyes wide open in shock. “What is this?” Her eyes darted back and forth at all of the chat bubbles filled with words that she didn’t understand.

She flinched when she heard a sharp flute sound emerge from her speakers. In the bottom corner of a screen was a message in a different color than the rest.

 

 

> **Chidori @Haruhana:**  uwu u should filter ur messages to “private messages only”!! ヽ( ´ ∇ ｀ )ノ

Sakura blinked. In the corner of the screen, she saw a button for “Message Filter Settings”. It didn’t require much deductive reasoning to put those two pieces of info together. Once that task was complete, her screen instantly cleared up. Now, with all but one speech bubble cleared up, she could see that those bubbles were emerging from specific characters.

 

 

> **Chidori:**  hi!! （ ´∀｀）☆ u just started right? 

The message had emerged from another kunoichi character named Chidori. She was small, even smaller than Sakura’s character. She had black hair in a hime-cut and also had bright green eyes. However, unlike Sakura’s character, it was definitely clear that she was  _not_  new to the game. Her character was dressed in pastel pink fishnets and a multi-tiered fluffy mint green skirt. However, what really drew Sakura’s eyes was the sera fuku top. It was powder blue and the back was intricately embroidered with what appeared to be a chubby kappa. It was a fashion disaster. It wasn't even enough to say that the outfit pieces were hastily thrown together. No, there was clearly thought put into it, but all of the ideas were bad. It was a wreck. Sakura couldn't look away from it. As she kept staring at it, she started to wonder if it was honestly kind of cute if you didn’t look too closely or even really think about it?

 

 

> **Chidori:**  r u ok?? o no did i weird u out im sorry!! （ ；´Д｀）

“Shit!” Sakura blurted out. Oh god, how did introductions work? Why was this “conversation” thing suddenly difficult? Was living with Sai completely fucking up her social skills?

 

 

> **Haruhana:**  o no, i’m sorry! i got distracted by something. yes, i’m new here! thank you for the tip about message filtering.
> 
> **Chidori:**  no prob! (ﾉ≧ڡ≦) this game is like super bad about helping its newbies so im just happy i was online to help you, haruhana! 

Chidori was seriously so cute.

 

 

> **Haruhana:**  yes!! thank you again <3 you can prob tell but i don’t really play games often so i could use all the help i can get haha
> 
> **Chidori:**  and thats what im here for uwu – a helping hand whenever u need one!!

 Sakura wasn’t sure if she was feeling particularly emotional this night because of the med school-related stress or if it was just late night anxiety, but this kindness damn near brought her to tears. It may have been a little quick to make this judgement, but Sakura was pretty sure she loved Chidori more than she loved anyone else in this godforsaken world. Chidori was a kindness angel sent from some video game god and Sakura was a devout believer. 

 

 

> **Chidori:**  its late so imma snoooooze soon but imma send u a friend request okey? (❁´◡`❁)
> 
> **Haruhana:**  yea, i’ll probably go to bed now too! but I’d love to stay in touch <3
> 
> **Chidori:**  of course!!! I’m on like alllll the time so just hmu next time we’re on at the same time uwu

With that, Chidori gave Haruhana a jaunty wave before disappearing into a cloud of leaves. Sakura assumed that meant Chidori had logged off so she quickly followed suit before being struck with a yawn. She heavily collapsed on her bed. Friendship was pretty great, she drowsily thought before she quickly fell asleep.

 

* * *

   
The next morning, Sakura couldn’t resist telling somebody about the cool friend she made online last night. Unfortunately for her, that somebody had to be her roommate, Sai. Despite Sakura’s busy schedule and Sai’s lifestyle of solemn hedonism, the two had an unstated agreement that they would always at least have breakfast together. This was intended to make sure Sakura had at least one conversation a day and for Sai to practice his continuously developing social skills.

Sai and Sakura had a particularly odd friendship. From what she could tell, Sai was the scion of a wealthy art corporation. He had been home-schooled from a young age until his parents had realized how completely inept he was at handling himself in social situations. Greatly concerned, they then quickly enrolled him into high school in an attempt to teach him social skills in a “sink or swim” learning style. Through a series of events, Sai had somehow ended up ingratiated into Sakura’s social circle. Ultimately, their current roommate situation was the result of Sai moving to the city when he gained a fascination for the intricacies of urban life. What really mattered to Sakura was that Sai was more than willing to pay for the majority of the rent and mostly kept to himself. These benefits more than compensated for the negatives of living with Sai, namely his complete lack of tact.

“Ugly,” He uttered in a monotone, as he continued to methodically smear butter on a piece of toast. “You are being catfished.”

“ _You shut up_.” Sakura hissed, carefully pouring out her third cup of coffee for the morning. “Don’t you  _dare_  ruin my new beautiful friendship with your negativity.”

Sai stared blankly back. “You know, I watched a documentary about this very topic a few months ago. If I remember correctly, the “catfish” was a childhood friend of the “catfishee” who had been sexually attracted to her for many years.” He blinked once before pulling out his phone and making a call.

“Sai!” Sakura hissed. “What are you doing? Who are you calling?”

“I am calling Dickless.” Sai explained, speaking over the ringing of his phone. “Evidence would suggest that he is your so-called 'Chidori'."

“He’s  _not._ ” Sakura argued, brandishing a butter knife. “You think I wouldn’t recognize Naruto’s writing style? Chidori used commas. Naruto wouldn’t know how to use a comma if it smacked him in the face.”

“ _H-Hey_!” A tinny voice emerged from the cell phone placed on the dining table. “I’m apparently on speaker! I can hear you, Sakura-chan! And I can  _too_  use commas!!”

Sakura scoffed. “Not consistently.”

“Dickless,” Sai interrupted. “Are you catfishing Ugly on World of Ninjacraft?”

“Someone’s catfishing Sakura-chan? Who? I’ll kill him!” Naruto started shouting, loud banging noises from the phone indicating that he had begun knocking objects over. “Wait,” He stopped abruptly. “ _You’re_  actually playing World of Ninjacraft, Sakura-chan?”

“Ugh!” Sakura angrily hissed. “Yeah, I am, okay? Nobody wanted to hang out with me last night and I needed to talk to  _somebody_. I need friendship, you  _idiots_! I'm a social person, an extrovert! I can’t keep living this way!”

There was a moment of silence as everyone in hearing proximity absorbed the depth of Sakura’s thirst for friendship.

“Damn, Sakura-chan.” Naruto was the first one to speak up. “You’re like a super prime candidate for catfishing right now. It sounds like you’re one more lonely night away from hitting up a host club for the ‘conversation.’”

“There is no catfish.” Sakura hissed, slamming her dishes into the sink. “I am  _leaving_. I have a 6 hour long shift in the ER today and I do not need this shit!”

“Wait, wait!” Naruto protested. “I’m calling Kakashi-sensei again. He’s like hella into that game. We gotta get him to protect you from this fuckin’ catfish of yours.”

Sakura stopped midway from exiting the kitchen. “Our childhood babysitter, Kakashi-sensei? What does he have to do with this?”

“I asked him to look out for you when I started tellin’ you about the game ages ago. I had a feelin’ something would happen to you in W.O.N.” Naruto admitted. “You got like no self-preservation instincts when it comes to online security, Sakura-chan.”

“Naruto!” Sakura screeched. “What the hell. I don’t need protection, especially not in a freaking online game. And especially not from a dude I haven't seen since I was literally thirteen!”

"Sakura-chan," Naruto said, slightly weakly. "You  _did_ respond to a scam email with your email password one time." 

"I was  _twelve!"_

Naruto hummed in careful neutrality. Sakura looked to Sai for some semblance of support and received a shrug.

“You guys!” Sakura protested.

“Listen, Sakura-chan.” Naruto pleaded. “I’m just gonna remind Kakashi-sensei to make sure! Plus if you guys like run into each other in the game, you can form a party or somethin’. More friendship! Everyone wins.”

“Whatever. I have classes.” Sakura turned away and left. “I highly doubt I’m even going to meet him in the game anyway.” 


	2. Chapter 2

 

> **Chidori:** congratzzzzz on reachin genin !!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> **Haruhana:** tysm!!! i rly couldn’t have done it w/o your help – i rly don’t know how the game expects you to get enough ninjutsu pts to reach academy grad w/o outside help??
> 
> **Chidori:** yea ┐(‘～`；)┌ the game rly needs 2 revamp its newbie section – if u dont kno someone @ a higher lvl ur basically screwed (≖︿≖✿)
> 
> **Haruhana:** you’re 100% right, honestly!! but that’s why I’m super grateful to have you, chidori! <3
> 
> **Chidori:** (n˘v˘•)¬ o stop it u
> 
> **Haruhana:** i mean it!! I def would have quit like day 1 if it wasn’t for you and your help
> 
> **Chidori:** no way!! ur 2 gud @ this game – maybe itd take u a lil longer to reach genin but u woulda gotten there fo sho 

In the 4 AM darkness of her bedroom, Sakura held back a fit of overwhelming emotion.

“How can she be this nice?” She muttered to herself. “An angel! This girl is an actual, real-life angel.”

Sakura reached out to her keyboard to send back another complimentary message to continue this cycle of affection, but was interrupted by a sudden noise. Another source of illumination popped up in her room from the cell phone thrown on her bed. She scooted her chair back to reach over and grab her phone. 

 

> **(4:18 AM) i. yamanaka:** if ur awake 2 read this message, i kno ur playin that dumb ninja game 

“Oh fuck,” Sakura said in a hushed tone. She hurriedly tried to reach her phone’s settings menu to turn off read receipts. 

 

> **(4:19 AM) i. yamanaka:** 2 late. i kno u leave ur phone on read like a damn fool
> 
> go to sleep idiot!!!
> 
> also I still don’t trust ur ninja friend

Sakura groaned.

 

> **(4:20 AM) s. haruno:** 3 more minutes!! i’m almost done, i swear!!
> 
> also i am personally hurt by the harshness y’all are showin chidori
> 
> she’s probably like a teenage girl from the U.S. or something
> 
> **(4:22 AM) i. yamanaka:** doubt
> 
> she’s prob more like a 60 yr old man from right here in japan !!
> 
> **(4:23 AM) s. haruno:** 2 more minutes i promise! i’ll just send chidori a good night message and then i’ll sleep
> 
> >:( she’s not!!
> 
> **(4:24 AM) i. yamanaka:** i’m starting the countdown timer now
> 
> o pls – u r so getting catfished
> 
> **(4:24 AM) s. haruno:** i’m not!!!

Sakura dug her heels into the carpet so she could scoot her chair back to her desk. Oh! Chidori had messaged her while she was talking to Ino.

 

> **Chidori:** u ok haruhana? u’ve been standin there for a lil while uwu
> 
> **Haruhana:** o i’m fine!! thank you for the concern. <3 i gotta head to bed now, but i’ll talk to you soon!
> 
> **Chidori:** g’night!! ヾ(＠＾▽＾＠)ﾉ

Sakura logged off and flopped onto her bed. It would be careless of her not to understand where all of her friends’ concerns were coming from in regards to her friendship with Chidori. Statistically speaking, Chidori was probably as equally likely to be male as she was likely to be female. Yet, in all honesty, it didn’t really matter to her what gender Chidori truly turned out to be. What mattered was that Sakura needed someone to talk to during this tumultuous period of her life and Chidori had so far consistently been there for her.

“If she ever asks to meet in-person though,” Sakura murmured to herself before turning over in bed. “We’re meeting at a police station and I’m gonna bring like… the entire friend squad.”

* * *

 

Sakura was going to be late for lecture. Curse her unceasing addiction to caffeine and curse Sai for putting paint in the coffee machine in his personal protest against the undervaluation of art in society. 

“How is it even possible for it to be taking this long.” She angrily muttered under her breath. “There were _two people_ in this line when I got here.”

The silver? Maybe grey? haired guy in front of her wearing a surgical mask casually turned his head towards her after her quiet complaint. “Guy in front of us is looking for a “Kappa Frappuccino”, whatever that’s supposed to be. Keeps callin’ it a “Kappaccino” and then getting mad when they charge him for a cappuccino.”

Sakura stared back at the guy. He looked back at her mildly. “Are you _serious.”_

“Yeah,” He shrugged.

“I’m going to be late for Dr. Tsunade Senju’s guest lecture on the molecular biology of aging for _this?”_  

He blinked back apathetically.

Sakura pulled at her hair with both hands and began staring at the floor. “I swore the Hippocratic Oath to help people like _this?”_  

“You uh,” Her line companion said blandly. “You good?”

“Oh, I’m fine!” Sakura threw her hands up. “I’ve just been betrayed by a member of the very society that I swore an oath to protect.”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Well,” The stranger in front of her eventually said. “Unlike you, I’m not actually in a rush for anything and it looks like they’re just about to give him a green tea frapp with mint syrup and call it a day. You wanna just go in front of me?”

Sakura looked up sharply at the stranger who also now apparently, her hero. “Seriously?”

He shrugged.

“Thank you, thank you so much!” She seized his hand and began to briskly shake it. “I mean it. I love Dr. Senju’s lectures and I was legitimately upset about maybe missing one.” 

He rubbed the back of his head with his free hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” He stepped back a few steps to allow Sakura to pass him in line, giving her a direct route to the blessedly available counter.

Sakura stepped past him, ordering her usual of a venti Americano with five extra shots. The barista at this location didn’t even bat an eye, he was so used to her at this point.

She waited for her local hero at the pick-up counter. He had ordered three sugary coffee drinks, again proving to be her savior by allowing her to skip his order in line. When he eventually meandered his way towards her, she looked at him in the eyes… eye? She couldn’t see through the fringe covering one of his eyes. “I will make this up to you, I swear.”

He looked very uncertain on how to deal with this situation. Regardless, Sakura pushed her cell phone into his hands. “Give me your contact info. I seriously owe you.”

“Uh,” He pushed it back. “Unnecessary.”

“No.” She pushed it back again.

The two pushed the phone back and forth between themselves for a solid few seconds.

“Aw jeez,” The guy eventually said. “Fine.” He took the phone and began tapping away at it. When done, he handed it over. Sakura happily took it back this time and grabbed her newly complete coffee order in the other hand. 

“Thanks so much,” She looked at her phone screen. “… Pakkun?” She looked at the stranger dubiously.

“Yup, that’s me.” He said. “Pakkun.”

 Sakura stared at him. He looked back expectantly. “Oh… kay…” She slowly replied. “Well, I’ll see you later then, Pakkun…”

 With phone and coffee in hand, she swept out of the coffee shop. No way was she going to be late for this lecture after all that!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all of the kind words on the last chapter!! saku and kakashi finally meet irl!! too bad both of them are extra af and can't conduct a normal first impressions meeting ehehe


End file.
